‘There hover in these restless heads One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the best, Which into words no virtue can digest,’
they find great need of the interjection. In their hands it deepens all assertions, gives utterance to intense longings, carries the hearer away into ultimate possibilities, and expresses the most passionate emotions in the instant of their most overwhelming power.” Who that is familiar with the history of oratory, does not remember instances when these little words, so despised by grammarians, have been more impressive, more to the point, more eloquent than a long speech? The interjections of Whitefield,--his “Ah!” of pity for the unrepentant sinner, and his “Oh!” of encouragement and persuasion for the almost converted listener,--were words of tremendous power, and formed a most potent engine in his pulpit artillery.[11] Garrick used to say that he would give a hundred guineas if he could say “Oh!” as Whitefield did. The condensed force of interjections,--their inherent expressiveness,--entitles them, therefore, to be regarded as the appropriate language, the mother-tongue of passion; and hence the effect of good acting depends largely on the proper introduction and just articulation of this class of words.
Shakespeare’s interjections exact a rare command of modulation, and cannot be rendered with any truth except by one who has mastered the whole play. What a profound insight of the masterpiece of the poet is required of him who would adequately utter the word “indeed” in the following passage of Othello! “It contains in it,” says an English writer, “the gist of the chief action of the play, and it implies all that the plot develops. It ought to be spoken with such an intonation as to suggest the diabolic scheme of Iago’s conduct. There is no thought of the grammatical structure of the compound, consisting of the preposition ‘in’ and the substantive ‘deed,’ which is equivalent to ‘act,’ ‘fact,’ or ‘reality.’ All this vanishes and is lost in the mere iambic dissyllable which is employed as a vehicle for the feigned tones of surprise.”
“_Iago._ I did not think he had been acquainted with her.
_Oth._ O, yes, and went between us very oft.
_Oth._ Indeed? ay, indeed. Discern’st thou aught in that? Is he not honest?
